Stafford Gatehouse TheatreStafford Gatehouse TheatreDescription.
This superb value-for-money offer covers all 12 films in the new Stafford Film Theatre season 25/26, from 16th September 2025 – 24th Feb 2026 from as little as £5.50 each.
They include:
The Penguin Lessons
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Salt Path
Cottontail
Black Bag
The Ballad of Wallis Island
The Girl With The Needle
Mr Burton
I’m Still Here
Flow
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
The Marching Band
This value-for-money offer overs the first six films of the Stafford Film Theatre season up to 13th January 2026 from as little as £5.50 each.
They include:
The Penguin Lessons
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Salt Path
Cottontail
Black Bag
The Ballad of Wallis Island
Steven Soderbergh / USA 2025 / 93 min / Cert 15
This gripping and witty spy thriller features two legendary British intelligence agents – George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) and his beloved wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett).
When Kathryn is suspected of betraying the nation, George faces the ultimate test, loyalty to his country or his wife and marriage. He has just one week to find the source of a huge security leak within the organisation.
Fassbender and Blanchett give stellar performances in this fast-paced film.
“This movie is Smooth Soderbergh. It’s brisk, engaging, humorous, well-directed, written and acted.” The Australian
Patrick Dickinson / UK, Japan 2023 / 94 min / Cert 12A
In Tokyo a widower receives a posthumous letter conveying a special request.
His wife wants her cremated remains to be scattered in the Lake District, the place that she loved growing up on the stories of Beatrix Potter.
On arriving in the UK, Kenzaburo (Lilly Franky) falls out with his son. After various misadventures in his attempts to get to the Lake District he is helped by John (Ciaran Hinds) who has experienced a bereavement of his own.
With a mesmerising central performance from Franky, the film relies on facial expressions rather than dialogue to tell its story. This award-winning directorial debut is beautiful shot on widescreen.
Gints Zibalodis / Latvia 2024 / 85min / Cert U
Animation. A black cat finds himself adrift in a post-apocalyptic world when a flood wipes out his forest home. Boarding a stray boat, he is joined by a needy dog, a mischievous ring-tailed lemur, a lazy capybara and a commanding secretary bird.
Using the open-source 3-D creation suite Blender, director Zibalados has produced a totally immersive and exciting adventure film, whilst keeping the animal characters as themselves, with very little anthropomorphism and no voicework whatsoever.
Quietly ruminating on the damage we’ve inflicted on the planet, this is a startlingly sophisticated work, deservedly winning the Oscar for best animated feature, 2025.
Walter Salles / Brazil/France/USA 2024 / 138min / Cert 15 / Subtitles
Brazil, the 1970s. The joyous beachside life of the Paiva family in Rio de Janeiro comes to an end when Rubens, the father, is taken away by thugs of the military dictatorship.
After her own incarceration, his wife Eunice must reinvent herself to keep the family thriving together. Based on the real-life story and memoirs of a family’s resilience and determination to find justice and peace, Fernanda Torres’s performance as Eunice Paiva is brilliantly understated.
The film received an Academy Award for best international feature of 2025. “Shining (and) thoroughly convincing” Sight and Sound.
Mark Evans / UK 2024 / 124min / Cert 12A
Wales 1942. School teacher Philip Burton (Toby Jones) sees untapped potential in his 17-year-old student Richard Jenkins (Harry Lawtey).
He takes the boy under his wing, teaching him acting craft and elocution, before officially becoming his legal guardian. Richard undergoes an astonishing Pygmalion-like transformation throughout the film and, having changed his name, becomes a recognisable Richard Burton for his RSC debut.
Toby Jones gives a nuanced performance with quiet, sometimes troubled, determination, supported by Ma Smith (Lesley Manville), who exudes convincing Welsh charm, whilst we watch as a star is born. “A note-perfect screenplay” The Irish Times.
James Griffiths / UK 2024 / 100 min / Cert 12A
Musician Herb (Tom Bassot) formerly half of a successful folk duo arrives on the remote Wallis Island to play a very lucrative show for super fan Charles (Tim Key) a reclusive lottery winner.
Herb is surprised when his former musical and romantic partner Nell (Carey Mulligan) arrives on the island to play the gig too. After an almost inevitable row, Herb attempts to leave the island but stays because he needs the money, the show must go on.
The film mines a great deal of warmth and humour from its humble premise and has been described by Richard Curtis as “one of the ten greatest films of all time”.
Magnus von Horn / Denmark, Poland, Sweden 2024 / 123min / Cert 15 / Subtitles
In post-World War 1 Copenhagen, Karoline, her husband missing in action, struggles to make ends meet working in a linen factory. After falling pregnant by the factory owner, she seeks help from a woman to have her baby adopted.
What starts as a film about the aftermath of post-war living, develops into something else entirely: a Dickensian portrait of a world that is closer to ours than we may think.
Stunningly photographed in high contrast black and white, and Oscar nominated for best international feature, this is “a film that lingers long in the mind after viewing”. ‘Pure Cinema’ AwardsWatch
Alexandre de La Patellière, Matthew Delaporte / France 2024 / 178 min /Cert 12A / Subtitles
In this latest adaptation of the epic tale, Pierre Niney (Yves St Laurent, 2014) plays the role of Edmond Dantes who becomes the target of a sinister plot. He is arrested on his wedding day for a crime he did not commit.
After 14 years in the island prison of Château d’If, he manages a daring escape.
Now rich beyond his dreams, he assumes the identity of the Count of Monte-Cristo and exacts his revenge on the three men who betrayed him.
This visually stunning and fast-moving period drama, with its energetic script and action sequences keeps the audience engaged throughout.